I jump, you jump, remember? {Perry}

[MARCUS OTTER]

It had been a ridiculously long time since Marcus had given Perry Buchanon a call. Or three. Well, he wasn't going to be fucking ignored, which is what he felt was happening right now. There weren't many times that he cared about being paid any mind. But when he was calling you- Perry Buchanon- you picked the fuck up- Perry Buchanon.

At this point he was punching the redial button, hand shoved into one pocket of his hoodie as he glared at the wall. When the automatic answering machine answered again, he huffed dramatically and slammed the phone down.


He'd just wanted to go for a drink with the only fucking person at Winchester who he regarded as worth his time. And he got the automatic answering machine. No. At this point it wasn't even about getting a drink. It was about punching that motherfucker in the face for ignoring his damn calls.

Getting up off the floor- where he'd been sitting, brooding- he marched towards the door, attacking the knob to get out of the room and slam the door.

People on his dorm floor were used to this. The temper-tantrums. He was always storming in and out of the room. It was really just the way he got around. In a rage. Now he had more than enough reason, though. Perry's floor was just a level below his, and he was sure the boy was home, probably doing that heroin shit again. And if he was, Marcus was going to even more pissed about that. Ignoring him for those stupid drugs. Not okay at all.

Skipping the elevator so instead he could stomp down the stairs, he reached the landing to Perry's floor and yanked the door open scaring the shit out of a couple of guys who were walking past it. Marcus only shot them a glare and pushed past towards Perry's room. Knocking hard twice, he folded his arms over his chest, waiting for the lazy bum in there to come open the damn door. When it hadn't opened within a minute, Marcus gave up on that and threw the door open.

He was sleeping? On the floor? At seven? None of that really added up. Marcus took an aggravated step towards him.

"Get up, dumbass. We're going for a drink." He demanded, getting ticked when no response came. "What the fuck are you doing?" He huffed, nudging the unmoving frame with his foot.

He was starting to feel bad about this. Perry didn't look so much asleep from close up. He definitely wasn't lying down comfortably, and Marcus could see where the boy had been shooting up heroin, some of the stuff still lying by the boy. The pieces started to come slowly and uneasily together in his head, and he stooped down beside Perry now grabbing him by the shoulders.

"Stop fucking around with me, shithead. You're not funny." He hissed, but there was a strong tinge of panic in his voice and he felt the limp weight of the other. "Oh shit. No shit. Shit." He started breathing as he pulled at Perry's eyelids. He leaned over to listen impatiently for the sound of a heartbeat, a lump rising in his his throat until he finally heard the faint thump. Sitting back up he turned this way and that in the room trying to remember where the naloxone kit Perry'd once showed him was.

Stumbling up from Perry's side he rummaged around through every drawer and box he saw before he finally found it.

It was a simple shot with a needle. He could do this. Even with the mental-reassurance, his hands shook as he got the shot ready, crawling back towards Perry. "God damn." He was muttering trying to steady his hand enough to inject it into Perry's arm. His heart was pounding in his ears to the point where he couldn't focus on anything, but no god he had to fucking give Perry this shot.

Composing himself for all of five seconds to give the shot he pulled the needle back and then stumbled up to grab Perry's phone.

Dialing the only number he never thought he'd be calling help from he heard on the other line "911, what's your emergency?"

[PERRY BUCHANON]

He had known the second he'd shot up that this was going to be a bad one, an evil hit. It had not been very pure stuff, but he had known that when he'd bought it. The vibrations were rough as they shuddered up and down his spine leaving him curled half on his side mouth open eyes staring heart forgetting to keep up its steady rhythm buthump buthump buthump -

Well maybe he would die here.

Queasy euphoria shook him, grabbed him by the throat and squeezed until the corners of his lips were blue and his pupils just constricted pinpricks of asphyxiation and his eyes looked too green like that, staring without seeing. His fingers played clumsily along the edge of the carpet; his eyes rolled up. He regretted taking the hit, not because he was dying (sudden sureness, relief, ha ha fucking ha they didn't think he'd do it they didn't think he'd stoop that low) but because he was alone. His vision was filled with white deadly ceiling. He was cold.

Darkness came and Perry settled into it like it was an old friend, letting the drug he thought he loved so much run its course, waiting for what he assumed would be the end. He couldn't deny that this was something that he'd been thinking about, perhaps even hoping for. He knew he only had to crawl over to his dresser to grab the opiate shot that would reverse the overdose. But his dresser was awfully far and what was the point anyway?

Save yourself today, kill yourself tomorrow?

No, no, that wasn't Perry's way.

By the time Marcus barged in on the scene, Perry had lost consciousness, blissfully floating on the bridge between life and death, waiting for the dark river to suck him in, dipping his feet with glee into the deadly river Styx, laughing hysterical...

And then suddenly life shot like fire into his veins and his body gave a great shudder of surprise as air filled his lungs with ice and his head jerked and his eyes opened and he breathed.

There was Marcus.
There was the naloxone opiate needle in his arm laughing at him but more importantly, there was Marcus as angry as ever, but he was there.
Perry didn't feel too very disappointed.

He sank back against the carpet and his blue tinged lips smiled a little.
He wanted to reach out and drag Marcus down to the floor with him, he wanted just to lie there next to him for a few minutes and appreciate life and the air that he was breathing steadily again, but his limbs all felt like limp overcooked noodles. So he just mumbled something in a shaky gargle, rolling a little bit and dismissively shaking out the used opiate needle in his arm.

"The fuck're you calling 911 for," he managed to get out finally, grinning tiredly and letting his head thud decisively against the floor. He just needed to rest a moment.

[MARCUS OTTER]

He'd been put on hold. The motherfuckers had put him on hold. That was fine, y'know, it wasn't like anyone's fucking life was in jeapordy. He was stooped beside Perry still, eyes fixed on him as if some reaper of the night would come in and steal his body while he wasn't looking. When the hold-music restarted itself for the fifth time, Marcus let out a string a curse-words that would make a sailor uncomfortable and checked Perry's pulse again, hand still as shaky as ever.

His hand jumped against the boy's neck as he felt Perry stirring, and his eyes went straight to his face, waiting for him to say something. He just needed him to say something.

He watched in an almost irritable fashion as the other's lips curled up slightly and looked to where he'd given the shot, stomach still in knots about it. Looking to the phone in his hand as Perry finally mumbled a question to him, he pressed the end button and dropped the phone off by his side. For a moment all he could do was stare because he really didn't know what emotion to feel right now. Relief was definitely pulsing through his still racing heart, but Marcus wasn't one to throw his arms around near-death victims and cry about how he almost lost them. The urge to was probably somewhere in him, but every nerve of his being rejected it and settled for the thing Marcus knew best. Anger.

"What the fuck, you fucking stupid asshole." He spat at Perry, getting up onto his feet, and taking a step away from him so he could refrain from choking the boy, or punching him, or even giving him a good kick in the side. Pacing a bit on the spot, he stopped again and shot another disapproving glare at Perry.

Marcus wasn't one for disapproval- he really didn't give enough of a shit about most things to have reason to. But Perry's drug use- especially on this occasion- had to be the one thing that got under his skin.

"I thought you were going to fucking die. You could've fucking died, you stupid-!!!" He huffed furiously in Perry's direction before kicking at a random textbook from a college class Perry had probably never even stepped foot in to attend. Standing still for a moment to glare down the now conscious boy, he folded his arms with malcontent. "I knew this shit would happen. I fucking knew you'd do this. You're so goddamn stupid." He mumbled.

He was angry at Perry for a lot of reasons. For using the drugs at all. For doing this to himself. For doing this to Marcus. Making him feel so vulnerable and panicked because, fuck, what would he do if Perry died? The question was always aching in the pit of his stomach when he thought of how poorly the boy treated himself. Now, though, it was throbbing with discomfort in every part of him. And he really just wanted to tear the boy up for making him feel like this.

Notes: Marcus's insult vocabulary is pretty limited when it comes to calling someone stupid.. So, y'know.

[PERRY BUCHANON]

Perry observed almost sleepily from the floor, watching with interest as a blank look slid for a brief period of time over Marcus' face. He ticked down the seconds in his head, waiting for the inevitable explosion. He pushed himself slowly up onto his elbows, head leaning heavily back like it was too much of a weight for his neck. He looked skinny and pale and there was an ugly bruise blossoming across his collarbone and disappearing into the ragged collar of his t-shirt.

It turned out he couldn't really hold that position for long; the overdose had been reversed but the heroin was still churning lazily in his system, coiling sluggishly through his veins. He pushed himself into a sitting position and leaned against his bed, breathing out a deep defeated sigh.

"I would've died, probably..."

He trailed off, staring into the far corner of the room for once not seeming to have something infuriating to drawl out in that way of his like it didn't matter or he couldn't be assed to care. His green eyes travelled slowly back to Marcus' face, lingered there, open and tired. He managed a little grin again, only it was a quiet, muted sort of expression. There might have been some sincerity to it. Marcus had just saved his life after all.

"Shut up," he said, narrowing his eyes a little and reaching a hand out to beckon the fuming man closer to him. "Just shut up and c'mere a second, c'mere. Just...sit." He patted the piece of carpet next to him.

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[MARCUS OTTER]

"Probably.." Marcus scoffed, repeating Perry darkly, eyes narrowing in quiet fury. Probably. He repeated in his head, and his stomach turned over at that word and the lazy defeated way in which Perry had uttered it. The eyes he caught staring back into his own weren't the eyes he remembered. Those weren't Perry's eyes. And he knew it was a silly thing to think, but he couldn't find even a spark of that wild fire that used to burn to brightly and dangerously in them. It was as if someone had put it out. Or something. Those fucking drugs.

He'd rather have liked to tear Perry's room apart, dump his drug stash out onto the dusty road and let cars do a job of destroying them completely. But he resigned himself to glaring in the same wordless and angry way as Perry gave a feeble grin his way. At the boy's beckon, he held back a moment, stubborn and wounded. Finally dragging himself forward he moved slowly to Perry's side, giving a distinctly grumpy huff before lowering himself to the ground by him.

Clenching his jaw silently as he listened to Perry's uneven breathing, he finally turned his eyes to the boy. For a moment his just studied him, brow knitted in it's usual moody way, mouth a thin line. "Why'd you do that. Why are you doing this." He grumbled, eyes leaving Perry's face and staring off in the corner of the room behind him.

[PERRY BUCHANON]

Perry met Marcus' eyes and found himself glancing away in surprise at what a blank, even stare Marcus was leveling at him. He had never seen the other boy give such a look; Marcus glared and glowered and his eyes were fiery and piercing and not calm and remote like they seemed to Perry to be now. He rocked with another wave of spastic shivering, turning his eyes away and leaning his head heavily against Marcus' shoulder at the questions grumbled quietly under Marcus' breath.

He grinned, mirthlessly this time like all his old wild joy had been sucked out of him like marrow and now the expression looked weak, sick, unsupported by any real emotion about to cave in on itself and die.
"I had to try it," he said finally, straightening a little and groaned through a wave of sudden shock induced nausea. He drew his knees to his chest and rocked through it. "You know I couldn't resist trying it."

Perry was in an ultrasurreal state of mind, because slowly it was occurring to him that the thing he had always - in his once innocent viral egotism, his hard-headed lust for life - assumed would never happen to him, had happened to him, and it had almost killed him, he had almost died. The immense responsibility of his own mortality occurred to him suddenly and distinctly. He turned his head to peer past his knees as Marcus.

"What else am I going to do now?" he murmured vaguely. "What else is there for me to do?"
He thought about it, clarity returned to his dark green eyes and he frowned. "Go to school, get a job, grow old, die. I can't do that, that's so stupid." He looked at Marcus, opened his mouth to say more and then looked at Marcus more intently, and his face softened from it's hard, frustrated expression and Perry sighed and closed his mouth and leaned over against Marcus again. "...Maybe I'll kick it," he said wryly after a moment, like an apology but not quite because Perry never could quite ever do that but it was close and offered with tired assent of perhaps "yes you told me so" written in the tone of his voice.

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[MARCUS OTTER]

Marcus kept his eyes forward as Perry spoke, not wanting to catch that weak expression on the other's face again. It made him feel weird, uncomfortable. He didn't like this Perry. He couldn't stand this Perry. This Perry was all tired movements, sickly faces and then those eyes. Where was the boy who used to be able to hold his own against Marcus? Where was the fight in him? It was like he'd just given up on everything.

"I know you can't resist being a dumb ass." Marcus grunted back. A shove would've usually followed those words, but he wasn't so sure this drugged and weakened Perry could take it. He was this delicate, pale thing. He'd had too much of delicate people. And now Perry was becoming one of them? Who was left for him now?

Brows furrowing further as Perry spoke in a weird distant voice, he finally looked to the other boy, not exactly meeting his eye. "You act like that's all life is. Like it's set in stone or something." Marcus shook his head slowly. "Do you really think you're better off like this? You're pathetic. And, what, are you too good for a job or getting old? What's so wrong with that? Your life doesn't have to be the same boring shit everyday, not if you, I don't know, actually tried to do something other than shoot up who fucking knows what." He was scolding. He sounded almost like a parent right now, but that was only because Perry was being such a helpless little child.

Maybe I'll kick it. Marcus turned his face fully away from Perry huffing and grumbling under his breath. He didn't know what he expected of Perry anymore. The other boy always seemed to be so down on everything only interested in finding something new to get him high. What was so good about it anyway? Certainly didn't look so appealing.

"You need to stop. You have to stop." Marcus said, almost like an order. No, most definitely an order. Perry did need to stop. He couldn't be coming around here everyday just to make sure the other still had a pulse.

[PERRY BUCHANON]

Perry's head nodded back heavy and everything in him was so tired worn down beat and god this sluggish infinity pulsing in his veins was like the only thing carrying him through at all anymore, except perhaps for the angry thrum of Marcus' voice. He let out a heavy exhausted groan when the other boy started his admittedly well earned lecture, turning slightly away, frustrated and suddenly vividly aware of his own guilt but unwilling perhaps to accept responsibility for it.

It wasn't his way, making amends, reforming, growing up - he was all Id, all wild Western American "yes!" heavy and frantic and panting in the summer air, no certainty of consequences, just the forward moving "go!!!"

But he listened through it in silence anyway, frowning at the carpet, heavy eyed, weighed down by the terrible drug, unable to do anything but settle heavily against Marcus' shoulder, complacent, so tired.

"Shut up," he groaned finally, shaking his head, irritated. "What the fuck about life seems worth a damn anyway?" he snapped back, bristling slightly against the holy attack wrought on him by Marcus his irritating furious perfect guardian angel of some warped kind. He turned his forehead slightly, leaning heavily on Marcus' shoulder another moment before he straightened with some difficulty, dragged himself up onto his knees.

"Maybe I'll stop," he said, sounding beaten. "Can't afford the damn fucking habit anyway..." He trailed off, looking at Marcus again like the sight of him could put Perry into a trance, and then he leaned heavily forward again, sighed out like every heavy evil thing inside of him could come wooshing out with it into the evening stale dorm room air, pressing his face in the perfect little niche between Marcus' shoulder and jaw.

"Stupid," he said, so tiredly. "Why did you even come around today at all."

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